http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/23/opinion/l23terror.html?hpwObama, Cheney and the Terror Fight
Published: May 22, 2009
To the Editor:
The debate about how “enhanced interrogation” undermines the judicial system and America’s position in the world misses a crucial point. If waterboarding is O.K. for the C.I.A., how long will it be before the F.B.I. starts using it domestically? And if the F.B.I. is using it, how long will it be before local police start using it to extract confessions from suspects?
When that happens, what kind of society will we be living in? The people who defend this kind of thing never talk about that.
Michael Califra
New York, May 22, 2009
To the Editor:
Re “Obama Would Move Some Terror Detainees to U.S.” (front page, May 22):
President Obama is indeed treading a fine line between our national security and the values espoused by our Constitution where it is difficult to say which one overrides the other.
With due respect, one has to bear in mind that while framing the American Constitution our forefathers may not have ever imagined the threat and scope of global terrorism, which has become a reality. Nevertheless, the fear of this should not end up in a knee-jerk reaction, which eventually resulted in policies and laws put forth by the Bush administration that further stoked distrust and anger against America.
President Obama is right in calling it a “surgical approach” in formulating national security strategy. I would go one step further and call it a “neurosurgeon’s approach.” I fully agree with the president that due process of law should not be compromised, and I think that in cases where terrorism evidence is prima facie, prolonged detention should be lawfully invoked.
Atul M. Karnik
Woodside, Queens, May 22, 2009
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To the Editor:
The contrast between the Obama and Bush administrations could not be greater, as witnessed by the speeches on national security by President Obama and Dick Cheney on Thursday.
Mr. Obama tapped the ideals that once made America the moral inspiration of the world. Mr. Cheney drew his power from fear, suspicion of foreigners and the false comfort offered by authoritarianism.
President Obama appealed to the better angels of our nature. Dick Cheney appealed to the worst.
Fred LaMotte
Steilacoom, Wash., May 22, 2009
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To the Editor:
Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s glib rejection of the “middle ground” in the fight against terrorism is nothing more than a recapitulation of Barry Goldwater’s misguided 1964 notion that “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.” The formulation is as entirely wrongheaded now as it was then, and Americans should repudiate it just as decisively as they did nearly a half-century ago.
Robert D. Madoff
Minneapolis, May 22, 2009
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To the Editor:
On 9/11, some 3,000 people were murdered. This was not just an attack on a military installation like Pearl Harbor, but represented the basest form of human behavior.
Every American deserved to believe post-9/11 that his government was doing everything possible to forestall another such attack, and frankly, anything less than an all-out interrogation of arrested terrorists would have represented criminal dereliction of the government’s fundamental responsibility to protect its citizens.
Belated criticism of those efforts years after the fact ignores the legitimate fears gripping the country in 2001 and the years after and represents a classic and disgraceful “second guess” of American decision makers.
A. E. Harazin
Amherst, Mass., May 22, 2009
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To the Editor:
Re “The Real Path to Security” (editorial, May 22):
The debate on torture and Guantánamo Bay poses an important question for the United States and that is, that it is one thing to have a constitution or laws, and entirely another matter when it comes to carrying them out in trying times when abandoning those laws and principles would seem most expedient. For totalitarian governments the choice is easy, but for democratic ones it is a moment of truth.
There was a reason German soldiers preferred to be captured by American forces during World War II, and this was because they knew how they would be treated in United States custody as opposed to being captured by the Russians. If we were to agree with Dick Cheney’s argument, that choice easily made by the Germans years ago would be a difficult one to make today.
The true character of a nation or person is not best measured on a pleasant day, but rather it is made manifest on days when all precepts are tested to the core.
Nonso Umunna
Baltimore, May 22, 2009
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To the Editor:
The real danger with the Cheney philosophy is that, in his view, the ends justify the means. When does it stop? If you excuse waterboarding by saying it saves American lives, why not even more severe forms of interrogation?
It doesn’t seem that we’ve reached that point yet, but under duress it’s not hard to imagine unless we as a nation say that torture of any kind is not permissible in our society.
Norm Rosenblatt
San Francisco, May 22, 2009
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